Abstract: Embodiments described herein relate to methods and systems for animating (bringing to life) an Agent, which may be a virtual object, digital entity, and/or robot. A Router enables seamless interactions between a user and the Agent via multiple Skill Modules. Skill Modules may include conversation corpora and/or other applications. Embodiments described herein may improve Conversation Orchestration in Interactive Agents in the context of multi-modal human-computer interactions.

Abstract: A method of manufacturing a learning rod educational toy set comprising a plurality of hollow rod elements, each rod element having an indication of its length on an outer surface thereof, such as by a number or a symbol indicating total length in increments, such as inches or centimetres, each rod element being releasably connectable to another such rod element by a respective coupling element, the coupling element including a flanged region having an outer perimeter contiguous with the outer perimeter of the or each rod section, the method including the steps of, in any convenient order, extruding or otherwise forming a continuous tube of sectional shape corresponding to the required sectional shape of the rod elements, cutting the continuous tube into discrete lengths corresponding to chosen increments, such as inches or centimetres, providing an indication of the length of each rod element on an externally visible surface thereof, forming flanged coupling elements, each for insertion into an end of a resp

Abstract: A home screen editor technique is described for use in smartphone devices having an operating system (OS) capable of executing an application and/or interacting with an application executed on a remote computer that affects the smartphone. One such technique collates at least one application associated Plug-in data from different sources, presents the collated Plug-in data to a user, and enables the user to customize a Home Screen associated with the OS, where the customization at least in part being based upon the collated Plug-in data. Other customization techniques described enable the user to change at least one color associated with the Home Screen and/or the OS.